Therapists

The teachers at the Institute for Personal Change are highly qualified and include licensed marriage and family therapists with extensive training in relationship and family of origin issues. In addition to the Process, the therapists provide individual, couple and group therapy and counseling. All the faculty members are themselves Process graduates.

The audio clips below were recorded on November 18, 2012, at “Friends and Family.”

Lori Gortner, MA, MFT
lgortner at gmail dot com, 650-248-3122
MFC 39511
Palo Alto, and online by Skype (Telemental Health)
Lori began her professional life as a lawyer. But when she watched her mother die at 55, she realized that life does end. Her mother’s death had a profound impact on Lori. She volunteered with hospice and found that she was more comfortable working with people, as opposed to against them. She enrolled in a master’s program leading to her current calling as an Marriage and Family Therapist.In Fall of 2014, Lori took the Process, which proved transformative. She found she could love herself and others in her family of origin without an internal catch. She immediately began training as a Process therapist.

Cris Jenkins, MS, MFT
2crisjenkins at gmail dot com, 941-224-6387
MFT 22273
Palo Alto, CA and Sarasota area, FLCris has been a Process Therapist for over 20 years. She has had a private practice offering individual, group and couples counseling. Currently Cris is the Clinical Director at the Institute for Personal Change. Becoming a Process therapist requires one not only to first experience the work as a client, but to continue on a path of self examination. It also means a commitment to staying abreast of research and methodologies in psychotherapy, as well as the many exciting new findings in neuroscience that are influencing how we approach personal growth today.
As a result of doing the Process herself and then seeing her clients move so deeply and quickly toward awareness, resilience and balance in their lives, Cris continues to use a Process-oriented approach in all her clinical work.Cris has a strong background in the research arena and continues to seek out evidence-based clinical practices. She was part of the research team on the Coronary Cancer Prevention Project at the Meyer Friedman Institute (now part of the University of California San Francisco Medical Center). This study followed 3,000 participants for 10 years. Results showed significantly lower incidences of both cancer and coronary disease between the control group and the participants receiving cognitive-behavioral interventions, including training in mindfulness and meditation.

Cris is trained in The Human Element, a renowned team building and leadership coaching program developed by Will Schutz, PhD. The Human Element is used by major corporations around the world. Cris worked with Ron Luyet, one of that organization’s founders, as well as a founder of The Institute for Personal Change.

Malcolm Stanislaus, MA, MFT
mstanislaus2003 at yahoo dot com, 408-831-8381
MFT 46059, Los Angeles Area and Palo Alto.
Areas of specialization: Shame Reduction, Mood Disorders (depression and anxiety), Emotional Recovery from Substance abuse (Stage 2 Recovery), General Life Adjustment, and Cross-cultural issues. Malcolm has extensive experience working with individuals, couples, families and groups. His specialized training in Shame Reduction methodology came from working at the John Bradshaw Center for Codependency. Further training was acquired in personality disorders, Intensive Short-term psychotherapy, attachment theory, and affect theory. Malcolm has studied the works of Frantz Fanon as they apply to Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome and other shame-based cross-cultural issues.Malcolm has the depth of life experience that has benefitted many clients in both in-patient and out-patient settings. He practices Zen meditation, Christian Contemplative prayer (a la Joel S.Goldsmith, a contemporary Christian mystic), Taoist yoga, and was a competitive collegiate gymnast, gymnastics coach, personal athletic trainer, and martial artist.Friendly and compassionate with a no-nonsense approach, Malcolm is dedicated to his clients’ full awakening of potential.